Cyberpsychologist

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A specialist in psychology who examines how people think, feel and behave when they use computers, the internet and other digital technology
2. A researcher or clinician who studies the mental and behavioural effects of online life and virtual environments on individuals
3. Someone trained in the psychology of cyberspace, investigating how digital media shape human emotion, cognition and social conduct

Etymology: "Cyberpsychologist" is a compound built from "cyber-" and "psychologist," the second being a noun for a specialist in the human mind and behavior. The first element, "cyber-," is a combining form drawn from "cybernetics," the mid-twentieth-century study of control and communication in machines and living things, and it came to mean anything relating to computers, networks, or the internet. Put together, the pair describes someone who studies how people think and act in online settings. The word follows a familiar pattern in English, where a prefix borrowed from a technical field is attached to an established profession to name a new branch of it. Its meaning is transparent from its parts, so there is no hidden story of a shifted sense or a notable first user. The recorded history is simply the combination of these two elements, with the sense of the whole following directly from them.